The Ministry of Economic Affairs said Sunday that it has no intention of extending the life of Taiwan's First and Second Nuclear Power Plants, as environmental groups have charged, but will need to send some of the plants' spent nuclear fuel overseas because of a storage problem.

Officials struggled on Sunday to determine the scale of the devastation wrought by a monstrous cyclone that tore through the tiny South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu, with death counts varying in the single digits but expected to rise once communications are restored with outlying islands.

Ed Royce, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs, reiterated support for Taiwan's bid to join the proposed trade bloc Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), during a meeting with the leader of Taiwan's opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taipei on Saturday.

Patrolling over the China-Myanmar border has been increased by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force after a Myanmar warplane dropped a bomb in southwest Yunnan province and killed four Chinese, a military spokesman said Saturday.

Residents in cyclone-ravaged Vanuatu hunkered in emergency shelters for a second straight night Saturday after venturing out to find their homes damaged or blown away by the powerful storm, aid workers said.

The president of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu appealed to a U.N. disaster conference Saturday for help as a powerful cyclone swept across his archipelago, driving painfully home the rising risks from extreme weather and climate change.